Thursday, August 20, 2015

You Had One Job

"You had one job." Every time someone makes a mistake in their perceived "job," this phrase gets uttered by someone looking to ridicule their sheer incompetence. The phrase has become an internet meme, has an entire website devoted to it, and probably more than one Twitter handle (but here's one).

Other than its reported first usage in the movie Ocean's 11, I think the first and most frequent time I hear the phrase follows a missed field goal in a football game. The idea that the kicker has one job (to kick the ball between the uprights) that he (or she, perhaps) practices day in and day out and still lacks perfection in execution is pure fodder for the hecklers. But have you ever tried to kick a field goal? It's not particularly easy.

But the truth is that nobody's job is easy. All of us have some degree of skill required to perform the job, and usually, we try to work multiple tasks or multiple jobs at once. If you are an entrepreneur, chances are that you wear or have worn the hat of every single job in your company.

"What if you only had one job? What would that look like?" (Tweet This)

But sometimes, when you seek ways to be better at everything, a little academic "what if" can help you see past the piles of email in your inbox. So, what if you only had one job? What if you had to define your role in one simple job? What would that look like?

Can you define your role in the context of a single "job" or a single "task?" What is most important to your success? Acquiring customers? Retaining customers? Producing quality product? Helping people? Take a few minutes today and try to define your job. Define it as a singular purpose. Then execute on that purpose. Make it part of your personal brand. Make it what you do and how others recognize you.